Valencian Community

Contents

The Valencian Community, sometimes also known as the Valencian Country (Valencian: Comunitat Valenciana, Spanish: Comunidad Valenciana), is an autonomous community or region of Spain located in the central and south-eastern Iberian Peninsula.

The first official language is Valencian (Catalan), which aside from a few minor differences is essentially the same language as Catalan spoken in neighbouring Catalonia. Valencians prefer to refer to their own version of the language as Valencian (Spanish: Valenciano), not Catalan. While nationalist sentiments in Valencia are not as strong as in Catalonia, locals are proud of their language and appreciate any attempts by outsiders to speak it. Valencian is not spoken universally throughout the region, however. Roughly 10% of the population speaks only Spanish, primarily in the western mountainous regions of Castellón and Valencia provinces.

As with other parts of Spain, Spanish is co-official with the local language. English is spoken by staff at major hotels and the main tourist attractions, but otherwise, it is not widely spoken.